The annual National Accounts - all in the series Official Statistics of Norway - provide detailed national accounts figures, intermediate consumption, value added, income components and employment by industries, and consumption, gross capital formation, fixed assets, exports and imports; volume II on national accounts statistics by institutional sectors.

Data are disseminated in millions of Norwegian kroner (NOK) on GDP in current prices and in a combination of annually-chained and constant prices.

Breakdowns are disseminated on final expenditure categories and gross domestic product in current and constant prices. Final consumption is broken down by institutional sectors, which include: households; non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs); and central and local government. Gross fixed capital formation is broken down by main industries: petroleum activities; ocean transport; manufacturing and mining; other goods-producing industries; dwelling services; other market services; and general government services. Exports and imports are broken down by main categories of products.

Data are also disseminated showing breakdowns on productive sectors, including breakdowns for aggregate industries, in current and constant prices.

Annually and quarterly data are released on Statistics Norway’s internet website, together with a brief description of the data. Statistics Norway’s website presents both aggregated and more detailed tables, as well as documentation of the calculations and explanations of concepts and definitions in the national accounts.

Seasonally adjusted time series for the main aggregates are published at Statistics Norway's web site.

Great emphasis is put on aggregates for Mainland Norway (excluding the oil activities and ocean transport). Regional national accounts estimates based on an input-output framework and based on final detailed annual NNA, are for recent years issued every year.

GDP/GVA

The GDP data are compiled using both expenditure and production methods.

In recent years, the NA statistics have been revised in 1995, 2002, 2006, 2011, and 2014 to keep up with the international standards. In November 2014, the NA were revised to reflect the standards of 2008 SNA and ESA 2010. The coverage for the NA follow the guidelines set in these revisions.The GDP related part of the Norwegian National Accounts (NNA) is based on an integrated supply and use table framework, both for the annual and for the quarterly estimates. The 1993 SNA was implemented in 1995, and historical series beginning 1970 have been revised.

All aggregates are defined according to international standards. GDP measures the total value of goods and services produced from resident producers less total value of goods and services consumed as inputs in the production process, before deduction of provision for consumption of fixed capital. The production approach thus defines: GDP = Output (at basic prices) - Intermediate consumption + Taxes on products, net - Correction for financial services indirectly measured (FISIM).

Finally, the income approach defines: GDP = Compensation of employees + Operating surplus /Mixed income + Consumption of fixed capital + Taxes on production - Subsidies on production - Correction for FISIM.

Employment

Employed persons are persons aged 15-74 (prior to 2006: 16-74) who performed work for pay or profit for at least one hour in the reference week, or who were temporarily absent from work because of illness, holidays, leave etc. (including paid leave, and unpaid leave lasting less than one year, providing the person has a work he or she can return to afterwards). Conscripts are classified as employed persons. Persons engaged by government measures to promote employment are also included if they receive wages.

International standards: Concepts and definitions used in the Norwegian Labour Force Surveys (LFS) are largely in accordance with recommendations given by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Eurostat.

Status in employment: The classification by status in employment is related to the main job held by the person. The classification consists of 3 categories: employees, self-employed and family workers.

Underemployment: Involuntary part-time employment, or time-related underemployment, comprises part-time employed persons seeking longer settled/contractual or usual working hours by registering at the Employment Offices, advertising, contacting present employer etc., and who were able to start with increased working hours within a month. Prior to 2006 only persons working part-time (based on questions on settled/contractual or usual hours) were asked these questions (concerning part-time/full-time distinction, see below). As from 2006 all employed persons are asked if they wish to work more or less hours than the current hours (according to the contract), and to state the number of hours that they would like to work in total. Compared to the new ILO recommendations of 1998 there are some differences. ILO has a criterion about "willing to work additional hours", while the Norwegian LFS requires active seeking (following a question whether the person wants longer working hours). ILO also says that underemployment should refer to actual hours worked in the reference week, while the Norwegian LFS refers to settled/contractual (or usual) hours. Moreover, ILO requires availability within time of notice, while we use one month.

Inadequate employment situations: Persons looking for another job because of: risk or certainty of loss or termination of present job; actual job is considered as a transitional job; seeking a second job; wish to have better working conditions (working or travel time, quality of work); wish higher pay; other reasons (questions also about search methods, duration of search and availability for another job).

Hours of work: The LFS covers the actual working hours as well as the settled/contractual (or usual) hours. Both the main and the (most important) secondary job are covered. Hours worked include all actual working hours, i.e. including overtime. They exclude absence from work, however.

Settled/usual working hours refer to the weekly number of working hours determined by the working contract. Absence from work because of illness, holidays etc. is not subtracted, and overtime is not included. Em-ployees, whose settled working hours vary from week to week, give information on the actual reference week as well as the average of their settled working hours per week (in the tables published, average numbers are used). For employees without contract on working hours, for self-employed and for unpaid family workers, data on their usual weekly working hours are used (as an average of their actual working hours during the last 4 weeks).

Part-time employment: 1-36 settled (or usual) hours per week, with exception of persons with 32-36 hours who classify themselves as full-time employed. Full-time is defined as 37 hours and over, and the cases mentioned above.

Informal sector employment: No criteria are used to identify persons employed in the informal sector (but family workers are classified as a separate unit, with one hour of work in the reference week as the lower limit to be classified as employed).

Classification/sectorization

Institutional sectors and subsectors are defined in accordance with the 2008 SNA / ESA 2010.

The quarterly compilation system is based on aggregated versions of the detailed classifications in the annual system.

Valuation

Output of market production and production for own final use is valued at basic prices, while non-market output (per convention) is valued as equal to total costs of production. Supplementary data for output at producers' prices are available. All intermediate and final use categories are valued at purchasers' prices net of deductible VAT. As in the Norwegian BOP, total and detailed imports are at c.i.f, and exports at f.o.b. (including an imputed export value for cost of insurance and freight included in imports and supplied by Norwegian producers). For international reporting purposes, imports c.i.f. are adjusted to f.o.b. valuation on a global basis.

Recording basis

Time of recording: Transactions are in general recorded on an accrual basis. Taxes on income, as well as most taxes and subsidies on production and imports are on an approximately accrual basis (VAT on a full "theoretical basis"), while other parts of the government accounts are on a cash basis. Exports and imports of goods are in practice recorded when the goods cross the border as registered through customs declarations.

Recording period: Calendar quarters and calendar years.

Source data collection programs

Production approach: In general, sources data are improved in coverage and quality as we move in time from quarterly to annual estimates. Below, main sources used for the quarterly output estimations are described briefly, while those later used for the annual accounts are not dealt with here.

Main output quantity indicators used for agriculture, forestry and fishing are monthly data for animals slaughtered and milk delivered to dairies, monthly catches of different kinds of fish and salmon and trout slaughtered on fish farms, timber fellings on a two- or four-monthly basis, and annual crop estimates by the Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute, while main price indices are those compiled by the Agricultural Price Reporting Office and sales prices for salmon and trout.

For mining, manufacturing and electricity output, the monthly index of industrial production is the main quantity indicator, combined with the producer price indices (PPI). For the oil industry, a main source is monthly data on tons produced and the price index for oil exports.

Monthly building cost indices and quarterly production index of building and construction are basic data for construction.

Various indicators are used for the transportation industries, such as monthly revenues from passenger transportation and from company accounts (rail, air, post and telecommunications), ton-kilometers for freight transport by road (by truck), number of passengers transported and traveling on charter tours, gross tonnage of ships, exports of shipping services (foreign exchange statistics). CPI components and cost index for road transportation (published by Institute of Transport Economics).

Employment is used as volume indicator for a number of other services, besides inter alia number of licenses paid to Norwegian broadcasting, quarterly income of state-run lotteries, guest-nights in hotels, deliveries of beer, wine and spirits to restaurants, and quarterly data from central government and local government accounts (the latter based on a sample).

Expenditure approach: In the quarterly accounts, for final consumption expenditure of households the most important indicator is the monthly index of retail sales. Direct volume indicators used are car registrations, oil and petrol deliveries to households and petrol stations, quarterly consumption of electricity, monthly quantities of beer and soft drinks from breweries, monthly tax records data on cigarettes and tobacco, government accounts data on fees paid by households, output indicators for various services (see above), foreign exchange statistics on travel and various CPI price indices. For government consumption expenditure, main sources are government budgets and accounts. For gross fixed capital formation, main sources are the quarterly survey of investment expenditure that covers mining, manufacturing, electricity, and oil and gas activities, various company accounts in transportation and communication, exports and imports data on ships and aircraft, data on building starts and completion, car registration data and data from central and local government accounts. Data on exports and imports are available on a monthly basis for both goods and services, from external trade statistics on goods (customs records) and foreign exchange statistics from Central Bank of Norway on services.

Other statistical procedures

Production approach: Price times volume approach is generally applied in the quarterly NNA for the current price estimations. Input-output framework enables the use the commodity-flow method and the use of double deflation for the constant-price estimations. In the quarterly accounts, intermediate consumption is usually estimated as a fixed share of output at constant prices, based on the share in the latest year for which annual national accounts have been completed, then inflated with price indices from the input-output model (exceptions are agriculture, some transportation and government services, for which value or quantity information on inputs are available). Below, main methods used and some of the main adjustments to sources are briefly described.

Crops data are allocated to quarters in fixed proportions, while assigning production to the period when the harvest occurs. The index of industrial production is weighted together to form the indicators for the 18 industries of the quarterly accounts (weights are output from the base year). Production of natural gas and pipeline transport is calculated by the commodity-flow method (a large part is exports). Same method is also basically used for construction. Output of wholesale and retail trade at constant prices is estimated by applying fixed coefficients of trade margins to the commodity flows at constant prices, similarly at current prices by applying the coefficients to commodity flows at current prices, while the household consumption part is adjusted when comparing the price indices in the input-output model for the consumption categories with the CPI. The commodity-flow method is also used for service industries for which suitable short-term indicators are not available (e.g. taxis).

Dwelling services are estimated by extrapolation, using housing stock data in square metres (applying the perpetual inventory method) and the CPI price index. Data on employment are used to extrapolate output of financial, business and part of personal services. CPI price indices are used for health services, other personal services and restaurant services. NPISH output and private health services are estimated by using annual information from the budget of central government. To calculate production of government services at constant prices, the components of output (compensation of employees, intermediate consumption, consumption of fixed capital etc.) are deflated by separate price indices.

Expenditure approach: For household consumption expenditure of several services there is a lack of short-term information, thus trend extrapolation is resorted to in the cases of repairs of household appliances etc., domestic services, social services and other personal services, partly in combination with information from government accounts on fees paid by households.

Consumption of gross rents is estimated using the commodity-flow method. Final consumption expenditure of NPISH is calculated as a fixed share of output in NPISHs at constant prices.

For gross fixed capital formation, there is little information on investments in machinery and equipment in other service industries (assumed to follow output). Investment in ships is determined using imports less exports as indicator. There is no suitable short-term indicator available for changes in inventories, therefore estimated in the commodity balances. Other expenditure or output may be adjusted if the changes in inventories look unrealistic.

Exports and imports of goods are deflated basically using unit value indices. VAT is calculated in the input-output model by applying the tax rates of the base year to the commodity flows at current and constant prices. Other taxes on products and subsidies are based either on monthly data from the tax authority or an estimate for the whole year, distributed equally over the quarters.

Base year and update cycle: The principle of annual chaining was introduced in the Norwegian national accounts in 1990. The annually-chained price basis is used when the final annual national accounts of the previous year are available to provide the base for prices. The QNA is chain-linked by using the annual overlap method. The quarterly figures are not further adjusted to the annual figures with benchmarking.

The annual overlap method: the quarterly estimates are compiled with the weighted annual maverage prices of the previous year, and subsequently, the quarterly volume indices with different base and reference year are linked using the corresponding annual indices to scale the quarterly data up or down.

The figures are equal to the independently derived annual chain-linked data

The volume measures for the back series are presented in monetary terms by applying the annually-reweighted chain Laspeyres volume changes to the values of a reference year. The reference year is the last year for which "final" annual estimates is available and is moved forward annually. To reduce the non-additivity inconvenience of chain-linked data, the data for the tail from the year of the last "final" annual estimates and forward is compiled as traditional constant price data using the year of the last "final" estimates as base year. Thus, the detailed annual supply and use tables are compiled in current and previous year's prices.

The source writes:

Sources and methods applied for the calculation of 2015 and onwards are different than for previous years. This impacts all series from table 09175 and some series from tables 09171 and 09190, such as production and final consumption expenditure in General government, in current and constant prices, where wage costs are a large component in the calculation. The main source is now a-meldingen. https://www.altinn.no/en/a-ordningen/. All employers are obliged to report all jobs and wages paid. As a result, strong seasonality is present from 2015 and onwards because holiday payments are now recorded the same quarter as they are paid. In previous years future payments were recorded in the quarters when they were earned.

As of 1997 the regional accounts have been published every year. Prior to 1997 they were published periodically. The regional accounts for year t-3 are produced in April/May in year t. Several of the statistical sources in the national accounts require a long processing time, resulting in the relatively long period between data collection and release date.

The quarterly data are provisional when first released, are revised in the following quarter, and are reconciled once a year with the revised annual data published in November/December. Information on the publication cycle for a given year (through quarterly provisional estimates, provisional annual estimates, and final annual estimates) is published in About the Statistics for the National Accounts on Statistics Norway’s WEB site.

In conjunction with the release of figures for the 2nd quarter of 2016, the base year is updated with new information from the final national accounts for 2014. In addition, new information is incorporated for all quarters from the 1st quarter of 2015. Acquisitions less disposals of valuables are included in gross capital formation (but not in gross fixed capital formation). The changes have been implemented according to ESA2010 (Eurostat’s accounting framework). Acquisitions less disposals of valuables was previously included in gross fixed capital formation (since the main revision-release in 2014 until the previous release of 2016Q1).